The objective of this study is to determine whether rural residence is associated with trauma exposure or posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms among military veterans seeking treatment for substance use disorder (SUD) through the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Delivering mental health services to veterans in rural areas is a challenge, so identifying differences in the causes and outcomes of trauma exposure would assist in effectively targeting service delivery.
Veterans (N = 196) entering SUD treatment at 3 Midwestern VA treatment centers were designated as either urban or rural, based on rural-urban commuting area (RUCA) codes. The veterans completed the Life Events Checklist, the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist, and the Addiction Severity Index's psychiatric status subscale. Hypothesized relationships between rural-urban residence and both trauma exposure and symptomology were tested using independent samples t tests, chi-square tests, and ordinary least squares regression.
The range of traumatic experiences was similar between rural and urban veterans, and rural-urban residence was not significantly associated with the overall array of traumas experienced or the symptom measures' overall scores or subscores. Of 17 possible traumatic lifetime experiences, rural veterans differed from urban veterans on only 2, reporting significantly lower rates of transportation accidents and unwanted sexual experiences.
In both the causes of trauma and the need for treatment, veterans residing in rural areas differ little from their urban counterparts.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 3. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 08 October 2016.
All research outputs
#12,343,160
of 34,357,314 outputs
Outputs from Journal of Rural Health
#563
of 1,272 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#131,869
of 334,922 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of Rural Health
#13
of 26 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,357,314 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 38th percentile – i.e., 38% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
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